IDRIS KHAN HAD ELECTED to see Rafferty in his mayoral parlour in Elmhurst’s Town Hall. This building was, like – the Elmhurst Hotel – another large, imposing Edwardian structure. Designed by the same architect, the Town Hall was in the heart of the town, on the corner of Market Street and the High Street.
The market town’s mayors did rather well for themselves. From reading the local paper, Rafferty was aware that no expense had been spared in equipping the mayor to play host in considerable style. Though, as he looked around the mayor’s parlour, he decided that the councillors tasked with commissioning the building’s embellishment were the sort of people who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.
The town’s heraldic device of three axes decorated the mahogany panels cove
